That’s weird, because that’s what most of Pinterest looks like, but it’s women posting about what they want to cook or what shoes they want to buy. (To be clear: I do most of the cooking in my family, I am not trying to make a generalization about what women want or what women do — but I am making a generalization about what Pinterest looks like. Take a browse around and tell me I’m wrong) It almost makes me wonder if this is supposed to be satire? If so, it’s almost funny in a way… (though it misses the mark) Like, men adopt Pinterest, but instead of pinning things they are interested in (thus changing what Pinterest looks like), they pin the things they think their wives should be interested in, thus keeping Pinterest exactly the same?

Anyway, this may be more of an attempt at a commentary on Pinterest (with misogynist overtones, of course) rather than a directly misogynist commentary. Or maybe it is the latter and I’m just reading into it too much. Not that it matters that much; as Crommunist is fond of pointing out (and I whole-heartedly agree) intention is mostly irrelevant when it comes to matters of privilege.

The fact that the “Things I think my wife should wear” is shoes and not underwear makes me think it’s supposed to be a satire about the lack of male interest in Pinterest. Not that that really makes it go down any better. But FWIW, there it is…

There are a lot of guys on pinterest, but they’re mostly in the art/photography/architecture section.

I would say half the pictures that come up as ‘similar to the stuff you pin’ on my page are from men. It depends on what you pin. Fill your page with fashion and recipes and it will look as though no men use the site ever.

I don’t get the high heels thing at all. Yes, it makes legs look longer and calf muscles look more prominent, but it doesn’t highlight any particularly female traits. So why is there such an expectation that women wear them, but not that men wear them?

(Yes, yes, I know, sexism, reducing women to decoration, etc. It’s just that this particular example of it has no relation to sexual differences at all).

Bwaaah. I followed the link.
So this is supposed to be what guys would like their wife to cook and to wear if they could make a wish? Let’s sum up…
Lots of sweets, the occasional pasta/potato/meat standard dish, and semi-ready-made convenience foods.
Conservative-looking heels.
Dead boring underwear. (No, it does not deserve to be called lingerie.)

Uh-oh. This would mean my boyfriend’s at risk of dying from sensory overload every time he gets dinner cooked, looks at my feet, or sees me undress.

Seriously, I can’t really decide what to find more annoying here, the entitlement-filled tone of “what I want my wife to cook”, or the total lack of sophistication.

I *did* get a chuckle out of the truth-in-advertising “things I want my future ex-wife to cook for me.”

I hope they are all joking; my response to most of it was to shout “get in the kitchen and cook it your own damn self!” I’m not sure I have ever known a man who couldn’t cook. My own sons started learning pretty early on (mostly because they were fussy eaters, and I wasn’t going to make 3 or 4 different dinners a night to cater to their various preferences.

I especially hated the ones that said, “things I want THE wife to cook for me.” It always bugs me to see women reduced to an accessory, more or less interchangeable with any other wife. Like if this one breaks, or a new style comes out he likes better, he’ll chuck this one and just get a new one. (Which I guess is kind of how a lot of people look at marriage anyway.)

How Pinterest looks really does depend on where you’re looking. My own (p)interests tend towards DIY/crafts, dream homes, places I want to travel, and cute critters, so that’s what I tend to see. As with all social networking, it pretty much is what you make of it.

I don’t understand this kind of “new sexism” at all, I am sure as hell guilty of plenty of male privilege in my time in terms of attitudes and language but I am trying to address these. I would never have made a “things my wife better cook page” the obvious “or else” is just sick. I might make a “things my wife cooks better than me page” with pictures of pastry (cold hands help) if I could muster enough interest in pastry.

What’s with the fetish footwear? Those shoes belong back in the days of pencil skirts and little perky pillbox hats with veils! JHC!! As for the food…if you had a diet like that you’d have a forty inch waist (= ‘no waist’) and clogged arteries in a few months. doG help us all.

I’m glad the cuttlepair have such an amicable agreement. I think my deal with my wife is better though. I do all the dinner cooking and she does all the dishes……what a deal!

My wife is an absolutely brilliant cook (I have eaten far worse in several restaurants) and owny shoes like that. I like that very much.

On the other hand, she has got a PhD, is in a managment position in an institute for adult education and earns more than me. She even owns more tech-toys than me! I respect her deeply as a person and admire her knowledge, competence and personality wholeheartedly.

It would be nice, if it were possible that those “two worlds” could go hand in hand without raising any eyebrows from any side…

Another reason shoes like that are woman-specific and considered hawt etc – in addition to what Torquil pointed out – they’re comparable to foot-binding. They force women to mince and prance along instead of just walking. They prevent them from running or doing anything else even faintly athletic. (You wouldn’t wear them to play with a dog, for instance; they’re useless for darting sideways, kicking [a ball, not the dog!], feinting, lunging, walking backwards – they’re useless for pretty much anything.) They cripple and confine and limit. Oooooooh, sexy.

James Sweet, you really seem to be stretching to find a “reasonable explanation” for this. Same with you, Torquil.

Janey, just because it’s a “joke” doesn’t exempt it from criticism. But you’re correct in that the phrase “the wife” is is a big fucking red flag. I’m remembering a group I spotted on a website I used to frequent, called “How Many Miles on The Wife?” I’m sure it will come as a shock that membership was comprised of some of the biggest misogynists on the site.

They force women to mince and prance along instead of just walking… They cripple and confine and limit. Oooooooh, sexy.

Ever see a horror or action movie where the fucktoy female lead is trying to run away from a monster or villain in heels? It’s pure titillation for male viewers, and not just because of how heels thrust out one’s chest and behind.

To be fair, I don’t think they should be banned, but I’d sure as hell like to see them no longer be de rigueur as part of a woman’s “professional look.”

She doesn’t have the pallet. Her techniques are shit. She doesn’t have the discipline to build her skills. She can’t stick with a simple recipie before she gets all ‘adventerous’ and changes horses in mid-stream leading to an inedible mess.

That’s why I do all the cooking. If I didn’t, my daughters would probably beat me and make me live in the crawlspace until I saw the error of my ways.

The truth is, my wife may be a great scientist and is published in all the best journals. She may be a researcher at one of the world’s best universities.

But she can’t fucking cook. And she doesn’t need someone, like you, all stuck on themselves laying a fucking guilt-trip that she should be equal to me. This whole, bullshit, superwoman crap.

And we have many other areas where one person is clearly the top-dog and the other clearly incapable. We are who we are. We have different, complimentary skill-sets in many areas and in those we work well together and trade-off.

In other areas, one is completely dominant and does virtually all of it. And we’re happy that way. And it’s a far smarter and sensible division of our labors than to have one clown screw things up on a constant basis because he, or she, can’t do it.

Regardless of your inflexible worldview.

But what do we know? We’re only in our 50’s and have tried pretty much ever stupid trend in this area… Before realizing people’s bullshit political crap being shoved into ‘how our relationship and the division of it’s duties should be’ is stupid. Let he, or she, who does best just do the job.

I think Cuttlefish has it right overall. Ok you and your wife are an exception, but think about it – that wouldn’t work out so well if it were you who just couldn’t cook – and that’s how this usually plays. Men just somehow “can’t” cook or do laundry or clean or change diapers or give the kids their baths or shop for groceries.